[News] Cyber Warfare is at the Center of the New Coup Attempt Against Venezuela

[Anti-Imperialist News]

orinocotribune.com
<https://orinocotribune.com/cyber-warfare-is-at-the-center-of-the-new-coup-attempt-against-venezuela/>
Cyber Warfare is at the Center of the New Coup Attempt Against Venezuela
Misión Verdad - August 3, 2024
------------------------------

[image: US soldiers at the Fleet Operations Center of the US Fleet Cyber
Command headquarters. Photo: US 10th Fleet.]

US soldiers at the Fleet Operations Center of the US Fleet Cyber Command
headquarters. Photo: US 10th Fleet.

By Misión Verdad  –  Aug 2, 2024

Attacks on the Venezuelan electoral system have reached the terrain of
cyberwarfare, according to the complaints made by President Nicolás Maduro,
the authorities of the National Electoral Council (CNE), and the Attorney
General’s Office (MP).

The president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, issued a second electoral bulletin
on August 2 at noon, where he also reported that there are still signs of
massive computer attacks from different parts of the world against the CNE
and the Venezuelan state-owned telecommunications companies, which has
delayed the transmission of the voting minutes and the announcement of
electoral results.

These cyberattacks have been accompanied by the burning of CNE offices in
various states and centers for the transmission and reception of
computations, causing damage to the electoral infrastructure.

Investigations are ongoing and will be broadened after President Maduro
introduced an electoral contentions appeal before the Supreme Court of
Justice (TSJ).

However, with the information available up to now, it is possible to tie up
loose ends regarding the depth and dimension of this aspect of the hybrid
war against Venezuela in the context of a new regime change operation.

*Epicenter of cyberattacks*
According to the graphs and data published by computer expert Kenny Ossa on
July 29, Venezuela was one of the countries that suffered the highest
number of cyberattacks <https://x.com/otrak0ssa/status/1818072781558317338>
in the world.

The map of Ziwit HTTPCS <https://www.httpcs.com/en/> shows that on the
election and post-election days, Venezuela was the 39th most
“cyberattacked” country in the world.

On July 29 at around 7:55 p.m., the real-time Kaspersky map found Venezuela
in 46th place among the countries that have suffered the highest number of
cyberattacks in the world, out of 200.

Ossa called attention to “the evident increase” of botnets
<https://www.incibe.es/aprendeciberseguridad/botnet#:~:text=El%20Concepto,conjunta%20para%20realizar%20actividades%20maliciosas.>
that “are impacting Venezuela.” He explained that a hive of bots was being
maliciously operated in the Venezuelan cyber atmosphere amid the election.

In another post, the computer expert mentioned
<https://x.com/otrak0ssa/status/1818417436217295218> that there was “a peak
of malicious IP addresses between 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. on July 28 (6,154
IPs) and 29 (4,714 IPs).” He added that these were “IPs for command and
control of botnets, spam, DDoS attacks, etc.” The data is taken from
Ziwit’s HTTPCS.

On the morning of July 29, President Maduro reported that there was intense
malicious activity of bots in favor of far-right opposition candidate
Edmundo González Urrutia and a cyberattack against the CNE transmission
system, which caused the slowdown in the counting of votes and transmission
of election results.

This cyberattack created a breeding ground for DDoS attacks on websites of
some Venezuelan institutions, including that of the CNE, making these
websites inaccessible.

Side fact: Misión Verdad’s website was hacked on the morning of election
day, so it was unavailable for a few hours. Regular readers of the website
can attest to this.

The objective of these swarm attacks can vary, but they often intend to
steal confidential information and cause damage to the target’s
infrastructure.

The Ministry of Science and Technology explains
<https://mincyt.gob.ve/venezuela-epicentro-de-ciberataques-de-bots/> that
“a bot attack is a type of cyberattack that uses automated scripts to
disrupt a site, steal data, make fraudulent purchases, or perform other
malicious actions. These attacks can be deployed against various targets,
such as websites, servers, APIs, and other endpoints.”

All this indicates that Venezuela was indeed saturated with cyberattacks.
In addition, there was an attempted electoral blackout: a scenario that
requires a high level of security and seriousness in an era where the cyber
domain dominates and is of critical and daily use.

*A technician’s explanation*
It should be highlighted that the reported attack against the CNE system
targeted the transmission of data. This does not affect the content of the
data since the security mechanisms guarantee its integrity. The results
transmitted cannot be altered, but the attack affected the transmission of
information.

The delay caused has been remarkable since, according to IT specialist and
external auditor of the CNE Victor Theoktisto
<https://latamnews.lat/20240730/lo-que-se-sabe-del-apagon-electoral-que-pretendia-sumir-en-el-caos-a-venezuela-1156490419.html>,
the attacks “reduced the connections in such a way that they were rarely
completed successfully, slowing down the whole counting process.”

In conversation with Sputnik, Theoktisto explained that “communication
between the voting machines and the Totalization Center is based on a WAN
[Wide Area Network] provided by the Venezuelan national telephone operator
through the telecommunications network that transmits telephone line data
[Dial-up], Metro Ethernet, and GSM service or via satellite in remote
areas.”

“The transmission network used is exclusive for the electoral process and
does not use the Internet,” he added. “All this is extremely secure and
encrypted, making it impossible to alter the transmitted data.”

Since the CNE has a system to back up the vote, possesses all the electoral
minutes that, as stated in the first bulletin of July 29 at dawn, certify
that Nicolás Maduro won the presidential election.

As for the transmission system, the specialist supports President Maduro’s
request <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr-Ywk1UdPc> to the Council of
State and the National Defense Council on July 30 to shield the integral
security of the electoral technological domain. “Obviously, it will be
necessary to use alternative equipment and protocols with greater
redundancies to avoid a repetition, including more drastic measures to
preserve the security of the transmissions,” Theoktisto commented.

Although Venezuela has an electoral system shielded against frauds of any
kind, unlike, for example, the United States and the United Kingdom, the
vulnerable flank (transmission system) was undoubtedly attacked with
partial success, a technical detail that has been key to the present coup
scenario led by María Corina Machado.

*Origin of the cyberattacks: North Macedonia*
Venezuelan authorities reported that the cyberattacks came from North
Macedonia, a country located in the Balkan peninsula, a member of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 2020, and a candidate to join the
European Union (EU) since 2005 after splitting from Yugoslavia in 1991.

It is one of the countries that, for a good part of the 20th century, was
in the European socialist orbit and is now part of the multinational
military organization led by the United States.

In recent years, the refreshed ties between North Macedonia and the United
States have consolidated a bilateral relationship of such magnitude that USAID
has dozens of active programs <https://www.usaid.gov/north-macedonia>
throughout the country. The US embassy in the capital, Skopje, also maintains
close relations <https://mk.usembassy.gov/> with state and private
institutions alike, in addition to close military ties.

Both countries share intelligence information and have a joint program in
cybersecurity matters, a collaboration that began in 2018
<https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/Article/1660069/us-and-macedonia-participate-in-cyber-defense-cooperation/>
and
is overseen by the US Cyber Command.

It is worth mentioning that in February, a new commander took charge of
that branch of the Pentagon, General Timothy Haugh
<https://therecord.media/timothy-haugh-cyber-command-nsa-nominee-senate-hearing>,
who is also in charge of the National Security Agency (NSA), the US
institution overseeing the cyber domain and whose espionage scandals and
malicious activities have gone beyond the limits of its own country.

Haugh announced in April that the US military’s Cyber Command has worked in
some 20 countries in the past year under a “proactive approach” and in a
secretive manner, including North Macedonia.

North Macedonia’s cyber activity, under US tutelage, is mainly focused on
an anti-Russia agenda
<https://www.intellinews.com/north-macedonia-steps-up-security-after-cyber-attacks-and-bomb-hoaxes-linked-to-ukraine-war-270736/>
within
the context of the war in Ukraine and Donbass. The agenda was prepared by
the experts of the Cyber Command during the Trump era
<https://it.usembassy.gov/u-s-helps-allies-fight-cyberattacks/>.

Another side fact that is not minor: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
maintained (or still maintains) a clandestine detention center (black site
<https://es-academic.com/dic.nsf/eswiki/176369>) in Skopje, a secret prison
financially assisted and run by the US spy agency. This collaboration
became known in a report published in 2007, evidencing the close ties
between North Macedonia and the United States.

As a NATO member, North Macedonia’s military structure is integrated into
NATO <https://www.dbki.gov.mk/?q=node/130>. Its request to join the EU has
also been accompanied by military adjustments according to the
delimitations of European legislation.

The Venezuelan authorities’ accusation was not against the government of
North Macedonia. It was only alleged that the cyberattacks came from the
country. According to the Kaspersky Cybermap
<https://cybermap.kaspersky.com/stats#country=49&type=OAS&period=w>,
malicious cyber activity from North Macedonia increased significantly on
July 28, peaked on July 29, and exhibited a stable trend in the following
days.

These data broaden the perspective on the cyberattack against the CNE, an
attempt to throw the electoral system into chaos to benefit the coup agenda
of Machado & Co.

(Misión Verdad
<https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/ciberguerra-apuesta-central-de-un-nuevo-intento-de-golpe-en-venezuela>
)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF

Misión Verdad

Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a
socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
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